The Sanitized Words of Complicated Women

Dianca Potts works through the many ways we've dulled the sharp, poignant edges of our literary heroes.

By
Dianca London Potts

Apr 12, 2018

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I recently spent two days sitting in my room, repeatedly listening to a lecture by Audre Lorde on YouTube. Her words washed away the reality that surrounded me: unanswered emails, unpaid bills, a mountain of dirty laundry. Listening to her lecture felt like an act of rebellion. If I had taken the time to tweet about it, I could have perfectly captured the indulgence of that moment with a quick and simple "#sorrynotsorry" or "#selfcare," but it was more than that.

"When we do not recognize where our power is, we do not use it [and] it is used against us," Lorde warned in a matter-of-fact tone. Sitting at my desk with slumped shoulders, I drank day-old coffee from a chipped mug, and I felt like I was hearing her — really hearing her — for the first time. How had I missed this side of her? Had I been sleepwalking? The stakes that women like Lorde faced were so much higher than I was willing to admit, and her words, although a salve, were as fierce as they were soothing. Somehow, in my eagerness to honor these words, I’d tamed the political intentions behind their meaning. I’d reduced my icon’s truths into affirmational pick-me-ups rather than letting them sink deeper.

In the wake of #BlackGirlMagic’s rise and the hunger for narratives penned by black women and women of color, the work of icons like Lorde, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison feels more accessible and abundant than ever. Yet the key word here is "feels." It is so easy to find a plethora of popular quotes or sepia-toned photographs of your favorite author standing at a podium or seated at their desk with their fists resting beneath their chin, looking every bit the literary revolutionary you aspire to be. You can buy vintage copies of their books and drink from mugs emblazoned with their portraits.

But how much of their personal truth is being fully represented in these quotes, in these photos? In our enthusiasm to uplift the women mainstream canon has historically overlooked, we flatten the topography of their lives. Their sharp edges are dulled in order to be palatable to the masses, and we celebrate what works — for us.

When we celebrate them, what are we filtering out? How do we sanitize their words and their legacies to ease our own discomfort, our fears of being radically honest about who we are? What are we cropping out of the picture in order to save ourselves the pain of embracing our truth?

In the beginning of "Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas," Maya Angelou confesses, "My life was an assemblage of striving and my energies were directed toward acquiring more than the basic needs." Angelou's appetite for more than what life — then and now — allots to black women is tangible. The audacity of her desires and her unwillingness to curtail them is what makes even the most familiar of her works so provocative. Her defiance to squelch her yearnings — whether they be physical, emotional, intellectual, or monetary — and her refusal to mask them as something universally relatable, rather than personal, bucks at the weight of white supremacy and the reigns of respectability politics that attempt to limit black womanhood. When we are willing to look deeper than "Phenomenal Woman," "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," and the familiar calm of "Still I Rise," something deeper than the aspirational and ornamental is revealed. The pervasive nature of her desires and the duplicity of her identity seeps through each syllable.

I’d reduced my icon’s truths into affirmational pick-me-ups.

Outside of the limitations of standard interpretation, the complexity of Angelou’s life is uncovered. The page becomes a prism through which her many selves are revealed to her audience. She balances the juxtapositions of her biography with profound wisdom and a humor best highlighted by "When I Think About Myself": "My life has been one great big joke, / A dance that’s walked / A song that’s spoke, / I laugh so hard I almost choke / When I think about myself." Readers may be tempted to simply revel in the poem’s brilliant craft, but what makes this stanza outstanding isn’t the reverence it implores from its audience — but the straightforward manner in which she defines herself. Here, she appears as a woman who longs to thin the gap between authenticity and performativity.

Further crystalized by an interview with Claudia Tate, Angelou insists that her work and her actions embody the fullness of who she is: "I try to live what I consider a ‘poetic existence.’ That means I take responsibility for the air that I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present… I try for concentrated consciousness which I miss by more than half, but I’m trying." If we look closely enough, Angelou isn’t just a sage or a highly applauded elder, but a determined woman who refused to be boxed in by the limited imagination of the world that surrounded her.

Similarly, the prolific Toni Morrison is often sanitized for the benefit of those who yearn to commemorate her words solely through consumption. During the recent celebration of her 87th birthday, countless fans shared the titles of their favorite novels by Morrison while expressing the ways in which her genius has shaped their lives. Although heartfelt, the jubilant outpouring of praise left out a large part of who Morrison is: an essayist and an academic. The literary giant who breathed to life bestsellers like "Sula," "Beloved," and "God Help the Child" is also a prominent theorist. And yet somehow, amidst the countless awards and accolades Morrison has garnished, the public has chosen to embrace her fiction with more exuberance than her theory. While her narratives are devoured with urgency, collections like "The Origin of Others" and "Playing in the Dark" remain an afterthought to the lush narratives of her novels.

Angelou isn’t just a sage, but a determined woman who refused to be boxed in.

Perhaps it is because she asks her readers to put in the work. In "What Moves at the Margin," Morrison reminds her readers that there are "versions of ourselves, many of which we have not embraced, most of which we wish to protect ourselves from." Her nonfiction work urges us to seek cohesion, to piece together all of who we are, even if the process of doing so is difficult. Morrison’s refusal to coddle her audience allows for her to share her truth in a way that isn’t dependent on their openness toward it. Our hesitation to celebrate her academic bonafides reveals more about us as readers than it does about her many talents as an academic writer and essayist.

In my two days spent with Audre Lorde, I found that she, too, challenges her readers to examine what is difficult to consume. Although Lorde’s work has experienced a recent resurgence due to third wave feminists’ passion for self-care and their fervent appreciation for "A Litany for Survival," the fullness of her identity (black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet) has remained under-celebrated due to the radical nature of who she was and what she believed. In "Uses of the Erotic," Lorde writes, "Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama." Through her poetry, essays, and activism, Lorde’s reliance on the erotic, and equally volatile emotions like anger and the experience of being an outsider, become the necessary tools for dispelling and dismantling what she refers to as "the master’s house." Her ability to expose, confront, and challenge the status quo of feminists and progressives stems from the consistency of her honesty.

I aim to fashion a more vivid portrait of who they are — and, perhaps, who I am, too.

Though many are eager to use Lorde’s words to ease the sting of difference between themselves and others, her words confront our deepest fears and encourage us to look inward rather than outward. "The strength of women lies in recognizing differences between us," she writes. "We use whatever strengths we have fought for, including anger, to help define and fashion a world where all our sisters can grow." Within the pages of "Uses of Anger," solidarity and sisterhood can be fostered by embracing the vulnerability of anger and the dialogue it can spark. Rather than calling for everyone to link arms and sing "Kumbaya," Lorde encourages us to honor what makes each of us unique, to speak our truths and to feel what we feel without fear. Her legacy might serve primarily as a source of strength, but it also serves as a testament to the power of being yourself, even when who you are isn’t palatable in the eyes of the masses.

Whether it be Angelou, Morrison, or Lorde, each of these women’s legacies have forced me to confront the way I pick and choose which parts of their identities I choose to celebrate. Despite our culture’s habit of uplifting what is most manageable, most presentable, and easiest to comprehend, I yearn to consistently honor not just their brilliance, but also their complexities, anger, and desires. By celebrating who they are in their fullness, rather than boxing them in or taming their words or intentions, I aim to fashion a more vivid portrait of who they are — and, perhaps, who I am, too. Only then will I be able to fully grasp the words they’ve written and why their words move me. Perhaps if I, and other readers, are able to embrace the totality of who they are, we’ll even be able to begin to piece together the entirety of who we hope to become.

Dianca London is the author of the forthcoming memoir "Planning for the Apocalypse: Meditations of Faith and Being the Only Black Girl at Your Party." Her writing can be found in The Village Voice, Lenny Letter, the AV Club, The Toast, and The Establishment, among others.

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